Cape Town - A measles outbreak has now been declared in all the provinces of South Africa, except for the Eastern Cape, the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) confirmed on Thursday.
From October 8, 2022 to March 4, 2023, the NICD has tested 4 608 serum samples for measles of which 727 (15.8%) were confirmed measles cases.
The NICD said 721 laboratory-confirmed cases were reported from eight provinces with declared measles outbreaks; Limpopo (255 cases), Mpumalanga (102 cases), North West (196 cases), Gauteng (107 cases), Free State (27 cases), Western Cape (10), KwaZulu-Natal (17) and Northern Cape (7).
“The measles strain detected in Limpopo province and North West province is genotype D8, similar to the strain in Zimbabwe in the 2022 outbreak,” the NICD said.
In the provinces where an outbreak has been declared, the most affected age groups are 5 to 9-year-olds (42%) with a considerable proportion of cases reported among the 1 to 4 (25%) and 10 to 14 age groups (19%).
“Vaccination campaigns should therefore also include children aged 10 to 14,” the NICD said.
The majority of cases (70%) were reported from primary healthcare facilities, and the highest proportion of cases reported from hospitals (56%) was reported in children under the age of one.
In the Western Cape, an outbreak was declared on February 20, following the detection of four laboratory-confirmed measles cases in the City of Cape Town.
Since October 8, 2022, a total of 10 measles cases have been reported from the Western Cape, with all of the cases coming from the City of Cape Town. Four of these cases had been vaccinated, while the vaccination status of the remaining six is unknown.
Cape Times